U.S. Authorities Asked to Apply Mccarran Law to Nazi Sympathizers

April 17, 1953

NEW YORK (Apr. 16)

American authorities were asked today to apply equally to Nazi, fascists and Communists the McCarran-Walter Immigration Law provision which denies entry to all members, past and present, of organizations “which advocate the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship or totalitarianism.”

In letters to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Henry Edward Schultz, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of British, took exception to the ruling of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service that “sympathy with or membership in the Nazi Party no longer constituted a basis for exclusion from the United States.”

This decision was announced in connection with the forthcoming visit to this country of Walter Gieseking, German concert pianist, who in 1949 was taken into custody by federal authorities after “grave charges of pro-Nazi activities had been leveled against him.” Mr. Schultz recalled that Gleseking at that time” chose to forego his concerts here and returned to Europe voluntarily” rather than face investigation.